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On the way to the party in the dark of unlit streets Romeo Montague heaved the third sigh in even less blocks. Mercutio resolutely ignored him for almost a block more before finally he stopped and turned to Romeo and leveled him a pointed look just before another sigh passed his lips. “What,” he asked innocently as if he did not want his friends to pry.
“You’ve been sighing since we decided to go out, I presume something has gone wrong since the last we saw you?” Benvolio nodded to Romeo encouragingly, though Mercutio would have preferred Romeo decide to forget his problems with drink and dance that was soon to be theirs, if only he cared less.
He took a moment, savoring the attention upon him, before declaring, “Rosaline has spurned my declarations once more as you know, I fear myself unfit for dance, weighed down so by my heart my feet refuse to be light.”
Mercutio could already feel a headache blooming.
“Fair Romeo, please allow us to dance your sorrows away,” he paused to gauge his sullen audience and suddenly touched his friend’s cheek lightly holding his gaze honestly, “the world would be deprived if we lacked the sight of your merriment forever.”
Romeo wrenched himself away, Benvolio winces but stays silent, “you do so dance with your soles alight with the flame of your heart, my soul is yet so leaden to keep me bound to the ground.”
Mercutio urged him on, “lend yourself Cupid’s wings, o lover, and soar merrily across the ground.”
“I am too sore from his hit still to ask of him yet more. Under the burden of the gifts he gives, do I sink to my knees and ask him to cease,” Romeo sat himself upon the curb holding his chest as if an injury so grievous could be seen in the night.
Mercutio grabbed his arm, and then his hand to gently raise it above his head, “to sink and wallow is your choice in the burden of such a tender thing, so beautiful in its gift of sight,” he grew tired of hearing what his heart echoed.
“Love is not tender as you see it, but rough and prickling as a thorn. Love injures all who befall it, in their advances or their conquests,” Romeo tried to pull himself away again, hurt burning across his face but Mercutio held fast.
Fury at that look, caused by one he knows so little of, blooms in Mercutio’s chest “If love be rough with you, be rough with love, prick love for pricking and beat it down till you yearn no more, forget and see none of those who injure your heart so.” He ignored the fact that he did not follow his own advice as he pulled his beloved friend to his feet. Benvolio steps in with masks for each of them as they start again towards the party.
Romeo sighs once more and slows still moving at the urging of his friends, “I had a dream last night.”
Mercutio, straining with effort in his levity, claimed, “and so did I!”
“Well what comes of your dreams?”
He smiled brightly, “that dreamers often lie.”
“In bed, asleep–with dreams that come to them in truth.”
Mercutio at that moment snapped, bitterness tinged his words “Moonbeams often find themselves upon lover’s cheek and child’s head alike, wild thoughts fill each alike racing past both fancy and delight. A small price to pay for a good night’s rest, though please put no truth in the midnight’s tryst. Dreams are places of fancy and flight, all from them best kept for night. A dalliance with the night’s sands is enough for anyone no matter how grand.”
Romeo, unseeing his pain, broke in, “enough Mercutio you speak in circles and sweet nothings.”
Mercutio, in anguish continued on, “I speak of dreams and their direction. Their reams but a subjection of vanity. All gifts given to humanity but wisps upon the wind, best lost to daybreak’s whims.”
Benvolio, silent far too long, interjected, “and daybreak we shall soon see with only whispers of merriment left to enjoy too late.”
Romeo, still sullen, spoke, “I fear we shall arrive too early for though given by dreams I do believe some foul thing yet hangs in the air to capture some too soon upon untimely death. Alas I have cast my dice with a guided hand,” he shook his clouded mood, “and guide my hand once more!”
Benvolio smiled merrily and clasped his hand as they reached the gates to the Capulet house, ushering him inside. Mercutio sat back as his smile flickered upon his face for a moment. He took a resolute breath and dove into the party with fervor.
Mercutio thrummed with the celebration, thriving in how it let slip from him his worry, drink in hand he did not search long before he found those friendly to his cause of a forgotten night. He stood on the edge of this choice before he tipped back and drank, his thoughts swam to more pleasant and simple nothings. His heartache washed away, he himself began to flow with the dance forgetting both time and purpose.
Not long, or perhaps too long it was difficult for him to tell at that point, after that he found himself at the edge of the dance floor with a drink in hand. Swaying to the beat he admired the decorations in a poor attempt to forget the people, or lack thereof, around him. Suddenly his eyes befell a maiden standing by the banister and his heart sank. He quickly turned towards the audience, to the faces admiring the patroness of the party. His heart burned as his eyes flit before landing upon the face he most feared he would see, and he was quick to remember talk of leadened souls with grief. Romeo, dear Romeo, looked upon her face as if stars kissed it. Romeo, his Romeo, looked upon her face as if looking at the world with new eyes. And Mercutio was all the worse for it.
Romeo waded through the crowd towards Mercutio’s blight and reached her to a crescendo of the music. Mercutio stood transfixed, for all his poor heart could take, as Romeo’s leadened feet began to dance and his clouded face cleared. They talked and danced and danced and talked, before a kiss finally allowed Mercutio to wrench himself away. Perhaps there was some truth in Romeo’s words, though the speaker himself had forgotten them all that night it so seemed. Mercutio left at that, resolute to leave love’s anguish for another as he sought the good memory of the night.
It was a day not unlike the rest of them recently, cheery to a degree most uncouth towards his foul mood and brightening still. Fouler still, absent Romeo had asked them to meet for an announcement of great import, and it was he both Mercutio and Benvolio waited upon at this moment.
Benvolio shook him from his dreary thoughts with worry in his voice, “here now Mercutio, come the Capulets, let us be off to meet Romeo at another spot.”
In anger at the day and at his friends and at those walking towards them now Mercutio dismissed him with a wave.
Tybalt approached, “May I have a word with the two of you?”
Perhaps too deep in his own brooding did Mercutio shoot back, “Only one? Dull enough to offer a swing with it would you not say?”
“Only as the occasion does require, as it soon seems to.”
“Take the occasion upon yourself, as I do not care enough to give it,” Mercutio waved flippantly.
Tybalt brushed his comments off, “Mercutio you consort with Romeo–”
“Consort! As if we were minstrels?” In a bout of wrath he gestured to his sword, “perhaps you would like to hear us play?”
Benvolio balked at that and interjected, “we are in the public’s eye, either step out of it to resolve this in the shadows or depart so not to shame us all.”
“Eyes were made to look so let them gaze upon that which interests them,” Mercutio shot to a bewildered Benvolio as Romeo finally rounded the bend.
Tybalt turned away from Mercutio, “You have staved off my questions and to your own luck they may be answered at the source.” He drew himself up and declared loudly, “Romeo, from the depth of my hate, in the most base of words, you are a villain.”
Romeo with an almost dazed gaze replied, “and from that hate I realize you know nothing, and from my own love I do turn my cheek.”
Tybalt looked almost as enraged as Mercutio at that and was quick to counter, “ you have injured me so in ways you cannot amend, turn and draw to seek forgiveness.”
Again Romeo smiled blithely, “I have not done you injury, only love you as you cannot imagine for reasons also beyond you. You with the beloved name Capulet, know peace with me and mine.”
Mercutio could stand it no longer, “I know you better than cowardly submission to such insults!” He had drawn his sword quite well before he had thought about it, his heart burning with rage and ache. “Tybalt, the king of cats,” he scoffed, “rat-catcher of the night, perhaps I can entice your claws?” Incensed Tybalt raised his own rapier and so then they began their duel. Mercutio, if he had lasted long after, would have been unable to recollect much of what happened during this fight, lost in rage and grief unbound. Eventually Romeo had come between him and his target before Tybalt flit under Romeo’s own arm to tag him. As he sunk to the ground he saw the Capulets race off.
He coughed, “A plague upon both your houses.”
He felt himself fading though he wished to not admit it. Romeo knelt beside him to cup his head, “Mercutio, you may last yet,” he motioned fruitlessly for someone to run for aid.
Mercutio continued, “You of the house of love and wrath so see those loved befall and fall again. Dreams spent upon glittering nights do eventually come true I suppose,” he coughed humorlessly and tried to wrench himself away, “ your eyes set on things too far to see the care brought near, may now suffer for the lack of it.” As he faded he heard footsteps, be those of his own house or another he cared not, houses were a cause for those lost.
If he had lasted but a moment more, he could have heard the anguish of some considered dear to him, he could have seen himself pulled away from arms so beloved, he could have seen the love freely given to him by all. Instead he heard no more, forever more.
If he had been around to see, his heart would have ached for the next actions of his friend. His heart would have broken at what he had prevented from coming for his friend. He would have wept at his own greed for the love of one so close. He however laid still upon the ground, then ensconced within cherished arms, and then within a cherished grave, forever more.
Some halls once bathed in laughter now remained silent, as the bells of the church tolled on. Some hearts so full of love befell the shackles of grief to not be freed for some time. The world, so divided meaninglessly by long forgotten rivalries, was mourning a soul unfettered by such needs. Though not the final nail in the coffin of a century long rivalry, his death was the first to bleed the heart out of it. If not for later tragedies, his death would have been declared the line by those around the feuding groups, alas too soon for himself and far too late for Romeo. One would think the breaking of such a vile pact as that of the Montagues and Capulets would be cause for celebration, and one would not be able to tell such a thing had occurred in their town for some time after as too many lights were blown out over something so simple as this.